


Velocity

by 78bathsheba



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Trains, Victory Tour, everlark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:16:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/78bathsheba/pseuds/78bathsheba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta, exhausted and distraught</p>
            </blockquote>





	Velocity

They were taking Peeta away from me. 

They were taking him away from me, pulling him into a room filled with with machines: whirring, or dripping fluid, or pumping slowly up and down as if breathing. I could see everything, hear everything, but I was stuck inside a glass tube, like the kind that brought me to the arena, and no matter how I pounded or shouted, they couldn’t hear me. Wouldn’t hear me. Wouldn’t stop. They dropped him onto a silver table and a bright light suddenly flared on, illuminating the white-clad figures bent over Peeta’s prone body. 

Finally they turned to acknowledge me, and I froze. They were mutts. They had to be. Mutts wearing the faces of the tributes I’d killed; still bloody, still broken. Cato sneered crookedly at me, pieces of his left cheek flapping lazily against his jaw. “Convince me, Katniss,” he said in Snow’s voice, blood gurgling from the gashes in his neck. He turned and plunged a gleaming arrow deep into Peeta’s heart. “Convince us all.” 

I shrieked so loudly that my vision shook, and hurled myself into the glass over and over, ignoring the sick crunch of my arm breaking. “Peeta! Peeta!--

\--Peeta!” I bolted upright, fighting off the sheets that tangled around me. “Peeta...?” I took a shaky breath to clear my head, and allowed the slight sway of the train to bring me back to reality. It wasn’t real. Just a nightmare. Just another nightmare. My relief was immediately replaced with fear. Where was Peeta? He was usually beside me when I woke from my nightmares, making soothing noises and wrapping me up in his arms until I calmed down. My fear quickly gave way to anger; I didn’t care if I acted like a petulant child, I wanted Peeta--needed him, and he wasn’t here. It was his idea to start sleeping together on the train, the least he could do was actually be around.

Grumbling, I dug through my fully-stocked dresser until I found a light cotton robe to wear over my shift. I threw on a pair of flat slippers and stepped out of the compartment, irritated that now I’d have to go look for him. Ugh.

The train was quiet and dark, deserted at this time of night. Everyone else was asleep (Effie) or drunk (Haymitch). I felt a sudden irrational rage that Peeta might be sleeping soundly without me. After all, he’s the one who’d gotten me used to sleeping beside him, so that the sound of his breathing was the only thing that comforted me. It was--it was--inconsiderate of him to then take my only comfort away.

I stomped down the hall towards Peeta’s compartment, intent on giving him a piece of my mind, when a flash of light--past his room, near the back of the train--caught my eye. I stiffened, immediately looking around for a potential weapon. I grabbed a half-empty bottle of Capitol liquor that someone had left on a seat and walked silently towards it.

It was the room where they kept Peeta’s paintings. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes briefly to steel myself. I had to go in there. I didn’t want to see Peeta’s paintings again, but I certainly wasn’t about to let any of these Capitol fools touch them any more than they absolutely had to.

The door was slightly ajar, and I could heard mumbling and soft movements. Someone was definitely in there. Adjusting my grip on the bottle, I slid the door open slowly, staying in the shadow the whole time.

It was Peeta. He stood in the middle of the room with his back to the door, in front of an enormous canvas as tall as he was and at least twice as long. He was painting, though it was nothing like the gentle, careful sketches of our plant book back home. He was breathing heavily, practically slashing at the canvas, each thick stroke covering several inches at a time with dark paint. And he was moving quickly--so quickly--back and forth, up and down, dipping the large brush into a small bucket of paint he carried in his other hand. It didn’t look like anything to me at first, and as I crept in, I thought that he was simply throwing paint at the canvas, not actually creating an image. 

He was still dressed as he had been from dinner, in light-colored trousers and a elegant white button-down shirt. I could see the smooth fabric stretching across his broad back as he swept his brush across the canvas, the muscles in his arms and shoulders rolling and contracting as he reached and stretched, see his thick forearms spattered with dark paint where he’d rolled his sleeves up to his elbows.

Then I saw it. The great, dark, gaping maw of the cornucopia. Peeta was painting the cornucopia, somehow managing to infuse his raw, ragged strokes with the fear and dread that I felt--that we all who weren’t Careers must have felt--when I first emerged into the arena. A sudden memory arose unbidden, of my father, walking through the woods, quietly telling me stories of the time before the Dark Days. Then, a cornucopia wasn’t a place that housed weapons aimed at turning children into killers, but a “horn of plenty.” He told of a festival day our ancestors celebrated, where they’d gather around a cornucopia filled with their harvest, sharing their bounty with their neighbors, and giving thanks. It sounded ridiculously wonderful, and I’d scoffed, teasing him about his fairy tales while secretly cherishing the image he’d given me.

Isn’t it just like the Capitol to take something so warm and beautiful, and turn it angry and deadly?

Peeta stilled, stepping back and breathing heavily as he looked at the canvas. He dropped the bucket and brush, and I watched him clench and unclench his fists.

“Peeta....” I breathed.

He turned his head toward me slightly, as if he weren’t sure he heard me, and was waiting for me to make another sound so he could be certain. I could tell he was exhausted and distraught, the sheen of sweat on his brow and the tight line of his jaw betraying him. I bent slowly to put the bottle of liquor down on the floor, then walked to him carefully, as I would approach my prey, being sure to keep my hands loose at my sides. As I rounded him and came to a stop before him, I looked up slowly, searching his face for an answer, taking in the sweep of his golden lashes and the delicate violet color under his eyes from lack of sleep which marred his pale, perfect skin. His eyes were glazed and his breathing heavy, so I waited while he returned from wherever it was his nightmare had taken him. 

“Katniss. I--” his breath hitched as he reached for me, and I pulled him into a fierce embrace. 

“It’s OK, Peeta,” I whispered as he tightened his arms around me. “It’s OK now. It’s over.” We both knew I was lying, but it was a lie we both needed to hear right now. Peeta had undone several buttons at the top of his shirt, and I laid my head against the bit of his bare chest that was exposed, feeling the scratchy hairs, and his heart beating wildly under my cheek. Even while trying to soothe him, I couldn’t help but greedily inhale his unique, comforting scent. In a fit of foolishness, the thought flitted through my head that he smelled like home.

He stepped back, cupping my face in his hands, and I leaned into his touch. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Sometimes it’s easier to...overcome...the memories when I paint them.”

I nodded. “Come on,” I said, trying my best to sound bright and whole. “Let’s get out of here.”

I took his hand, leading him through the dark halls of the train as it sped through the night.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in a couple of hours one afternoon to indulge my Peeta spiral, so apologies if it's rough. If you don't hate it, come hit me up on tumblr, where I'm also 78bathsheba.


End file.
